Why My Truck Only Plays Tapes
The tape wall in our 9th Avenue store exists because we've been struggling to find the right balance of structure and freedom with our music selection. We never wanted one set playlist, but with four stores, having no guidelines turned what should be an enjoyable part of the job into a source of conflict. Who gets to choose? What happens when someone complains?
The answer came from an unexpected place: a recent purchase of a 2004 Tacoma with the original tape deck still working.
My four-year-old son Charlie was as excited about that truck as I was. On that first warm, breezy evening, we decided to take a joy ride together. I thought about those Grateful Dead tapes my brothers had passed down to me, wondered if they'd survived five moves around San Francisco. Charlie and I searched through boxes in the basement until we found them in a box labeled "Luke's stuff."
We hopped in the truck, Charlie on my lap, and drove in circles around the neighborhood for the next hour, windows down, music up.
Since then, I've maintained a tape-only policy in the truck. It started as nostalgia but became something else entirely. Every time I got in and turned on a tape, I could reset whatever stressful day I was navigating. No scrolling through the same Spotify songs. No calls interrupting the music. Just a chance to chill for a minute and listen.
After enough time noticing the impact that simple tape experience had on me, I got the courage to pitch it to our COO as a way to offer music in our stores. She agreed it could work, so we started mapping out a plan.
I thought about vinyl first, but quickly let that idea go because staff would have to flip records every 30 minutes. Plus they scratch easily. I knew with tapes that we could have continuous play and that tapes generally hold up pretty well over time. They're not quite as warm in sound as vinyl, but they're close. Logistics aside, tapes from the 80s naturally make most people want to dance, so I knew the medium would naturally curate our selection toward joy. The Pointer Sisters, Wham!, Prince, Zapp.
Now at our 9th Avenue location, staff can pick from hundreds of tapes, all from an era that makes customers move a little differently while they shop. This is what I mean when I talk about creating space for those moments when life stops being background noise and starts being something you're actually participating in.
When you walk into one of our stores and hear a song that makes you move differently, when you catch yourself humming along while you shop, when you realize you're not just grabbing groceries but actually enjoying the process, that's what we're here for.
At Luke's, we're trying to create space for those moments when ordinary transforms into something worth remembering. The tape wall is just one small way we're proving that grocery stores can still be neighborhood cornerstones where people slow down instead of speed up.
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Four Blocks from Paradise
This August, Dead & Company are playing Golden Gate Park, four blocks from our Inner Sunset store on 9th Avenue.
The same music that shaped my understanding of joy, community, and what it means to be present will be echoing through the neighborhood where we've built our newest store. The same songs I learned on my brothers' bedroom floor, the same recordings I obsessed over as a teenager, the same tape that was playing when Charlie and I took our first ride in the Tacoma. Everything comes full circle in the place where we're trying to prove that grocery stores can still be neighborhood cornerstones.
Dwayne Jarrell
July 18, 2025
I was pretty stoked to hear some Blancmange in the Cole Valley store last week. Had to dig deep just to remember the name of the band. Definitely some 80s nostalgia for me.